The poet brings his fascination with formal poetry to 21st century subjects — internet culture, science, postmodern architecture — even as he also explores intimacy, gay love, and emotionally-charged objects in this bilingual (Polish/English) collection. Dehnel’s range of style and diction includes poems based on the classic Polish thirteen-syllable line and intricate rhyming stanzas, to prose poems and freer lyrics. “My restlessness… is one of my strongest traits—that insatiability for places, books, paintings, people,” he says.
Contents
Translator’s Introduction
1 A Razor-Sharp Glance
Brzytwa okamgnienia
A Razor-Sharp Glance
Miłe złego porządki
Small Efforts at Order
Macewy
Matzevot
Czerwiec.Lipiec
June.July.
Saint-Malo
Saint-Malo
Biedny chrześcijanin patrzy na gabinet Peggy Sage
A Poor Christian Looks at the Peggy Sage Salon
Albert Watson, Golden Boy (New York, 1990)
Albert Watson, Golden Boy (New York, 1990)
Odkopanie posągu Antinousa w Delfach, 1894
Unearthing a Statue of Antinous in Delphi, 1894
2 Aperture
Wizjer
Aperture
Muzeum anatomii: sarna
Museum of Anatomy: Deer
Rys. 370. Garb wskutek gruźlicy kręgosłupa
Fig. 370. Hunchback due to tuberculosis of the spine
Bażant
Pheasant
Bajka o hurtowniku pietruszki
Fable of the Parsley Dealer
Czereśnie
Cherries
Niewdzięczność
Ungratefulness
8.5 x 13, ’84
4 x 6, ’84
Hör ich das Liedchen klingen
Hör ich das Liedchen klingen
Stary człowiek w oknie pałacu
Old Man in a Palace Window
3 Posterity
Posterity
Posterity
Sebastiano del Piombo, Wskrzeszenia Łazarza
Sebastiano del Piombo, The Raising of Lazarus
Żółty dom
Yellow House
Urartu
Urartu
Pleśń (Warszawa Centralna)
Mold (Warsaw Central Station)
Big Splash
Big Splash
Przebicie
Flashover
Space Oddity
Space Oddity
4 Symmetry
Symetria
Symmetry
Apetyt
Appetite
Korytarz, późna jesień
Train Corridor, Late Fall
Odwilż
Thaw
www.gaydar.pl
www.gaydar.pl
Szczęście
Happiness
Nurt
Current
“Jeśli nieszczęśliwa miłość kończy się…”
“If unhappy love ends…”
Notes on the poems
Acknowledgments